Technotronic
by JaDE-rUst
Summary: He's bigger. He's badder. He's back. This time no goodie-two-shoes is going to ruin his ride.
1. Dead men have no friends

Technotronic

B JaDErUst

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Author's Notes: After two false starts I've finally got a chapter that can work ready for you. Hopefully the second chapter turns out as well as this one did so it can be continued like I originally intended. If not, then consider this a one shot.

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Buddy Pine didn't know it, but he was quite possibly the most loved person on the entire planet.

On the way to the hospital, his mother in labour and his father still a devoted husband instead of an abusive drunk, something had awoken deep in the earth. It had been something that had been sleeping for some time, not so much an intelligence, but a feeling that swept through the area, focusing all attention on that speeding car with the soon to be born child inside.

The car never did make it to the hospital in time that afternoon, and Buddy William Pine was born in the front seat of his family car while his father drove. The wind was the first to greet him as his mother fainted, and his father ran into the hospital yelling for help. It tickled its way across the infant's stomach and face, greeting the crying baby with that joyful feeling. Buddy, with the inherent knowledge that becomes lost to us as we grow, recognized the wind for what it was and cried his greetings back to the world.

The wind rejoiced and the earth was joyful with it. The feeling deepened and became love. For little Buddy Pine had been born with a most terrible super power, one which inspired love in all the nature that surrounded him.

It was not all that odd a super power. The NSA recognized many super heroes and villains that had powers that inspired love in people and allowed them to control the elements. However, the love supers held over people was more of an artificial love, one caused by a mix of pheromones and hypnotism that tricked people into feeling things they ordinarily wouldn't. Such things didn't matter anyway, for Buddy's power could not affect people. The power some supers held over the elements was also not comparable to Buddy's power. While nature may have held some affection for the supers who could control it, it obeyed more on a sense of obligation rather then because of its devotion to the user. In fact, more often then not the earth was indifferent to the supers who shaped its fire and sent its wind into gales and cyclones. It was forced to obey those supers, forced by bonds even the earth itself didn't understand.

Buddy was different though. Every element, every aspect of the earth wished to obey Buddy for no other reasons then its love for him. Almost an apology for all the supers that tore the earth from its natural order, Buddy asked for nothing unnatural so the feeling blessed him with sunny summer days, wind for kites, and snow for forts without the boy ever realizing the feeling's existence.

Things were never perfect, of course, and the feeling was tried.

When Buddy was five, the apartment building he lived in caught on fire. It was arson and the fire could not go against the natural order of things and simply not burn. Only a super of a different sort could have demanded the fire stop. Buddy could only cry as he clutched his mother, while the fire desperately tried to avoid the boy it loved, hoping that something would happen to stop it from harming him. Firefighters arrived and never before had the water been able to hit with such accuracy and douse so much. Never before had a fire been so eager to go out. A young super arrived on the scene and pulled Buddy and his mother from the still burning building, making headlines and putting Buddy's bright blue eyes on the front page of the local newspaper.

The young super's name was Shadow.

Shadow had played with the little boy while the paramedics checked his mother for smoke inhalation. The first and only person for a very long time to start to realize what Buddy really was, Shadow sensed the feeling that followed him. For while his power of love did not affect people, they could still feel it, leaving many to stay away from the boy. People did not understand the feeling, did not understand how an emotion so pure could follow a boy so young. However, Shadow did understand. A similar feeling followed a sister of hers. Buddy's feeling was stronger though, and Shadow smiled, giving Buddy the toy she had bought for her sister before handing him back to his mother and vanishing into the night.

Two months later, Shadow died foiling a bank robbery.

The feelings that followed both Buddy and the little sister had been following the super at the time, and they mourned the fact that they had failed. Buddy's feeling, the one that controlled all the world could not stop the gun from firing just as it could not stop fire from burning nor the sun from entering the sky. The little sister's love, one that only affected machines did little to help either. There had been no jams, no reason for the gun to misfire and besides, the gun loved its owner as all objects become attached to the ones that care for them.

Shadow was buried on a Sunday, a funeral that Buddy did not know about and the little girl did not understand. She was only a very little girl, younger then Buddy. Only knowing that her parents were crying and her big sister would not stop sleeping, she cried too. The feeling that was Buddy's felt pity on the child and allowed the sky to cry too, gentle raindrops soaking the soft soil of the grave.

After that, the girl and her parents moved away, and only Buddy's feeling remained in the town. It was about at this time that the feeling became easily sensed by other people. The earth had failed to repay the one who has saved its loved one, and it feared that one day it would fail to save the boy himself.

Coiling around the child tightly, the feeling clung to him driving more people away then ever before. The people still did not understand the feeling and so thought the five year old was too odd to allow their children to play with him. His father began to drink, unable to cope with the presence that filled their new apartment, a presence he came to fear despite the fact that it was the feeling of pure and unbiased love. Even Buddy's mother began to look at her child strangely. A mother's love is the purest sort of love most people ever see, but even that could not match the purity of the feeling that surrounded her son. It was almost as if she was loving another woman's child, and that thought disturbed the woman, despite the fact she knew Buddy was her own.

For Buddy's father, the drinking continued to get worse each year. When Buddy was twelve the problem reached its climax when his father beat his wife to death one summer night.

While Buddy had lost the memory of the young super Shadow and his rescue from the flames, Buddy had not lost the feeling of awe meeting a super brought. Like many boys his age, he became obsessed with the heroes. He bought posters and comics starring them, went to conventions, and hounded them for autographs. Much like every student at his school he secretly wished for a super power that would allow him to fight at their sides. To defeat evil, and to be respected.

Buddy had another reason as well. He thought, like all small children did, that a super's life was perfect in every way. The young supers, the sidekicks, were popular at school, got good grades, and were the best at sports. At home they would be happy with hot dinner always on the table and a father who asked about both school and super work and was proud about both.

Supers didn't come from families where the mother's face was black and blue and where the father didn't work anymore because he was too busy drinking. Sidekicks didn't get locked in their rooms without supper or pushed down the stairs while their mother screamed for their father to stop hitting their son, to stop hitting her, to stop drinking so much.

Buddy knew that if he became a super and a sidekick his life would become perfect. His father would stop drinking and get a job; his mother wouldn't cry anymore and be beautiful and happy again. Like every little boy he waited for something fantastic to happen to him, for his super power to appear and take him to a perfect world.

He didn't know it, but his super power was already there, cradling the boy as he slept, mussing his hair when he walked to school. The feeling was still there, even though Buddy didn't remember it's presence anymore. Embracing him lovingly every moment, the feeling wished to grant Buddy's wish for powers, but didn't know how to tell him. The wind in his hair whispered that if he asked it would blow apart any building. The earth beneath his feet pledged earthquakes and landslips if he said the word. Water and fire promised power too, as did every other aspect of the earth, but like all humans Buddy had forgotten the languages of the earth and no longer could hear their words.

Patiently, he waited for a time, but with no powers in sight Buddy determined to take matters into his own hands. Perhaps he was also guided by the feeling that was instilled into the machines he was also fascinated in or perhaps he saw inventing as his only means to gain the powers he craved. In any case, he created a pair of rocket boots with an ease that would bring jealousy to any grown inventor or scientist. Finally able to aid the one it loved, the feeling was guided by Buddy's hand and smoothed out the boots' design, making them perfect when they would have been a failure to anyone else.

Rejoicing with him, the feeling had followed him as he went downtown in search of Buddy's favorite super hero, Mr. Incredible. As the boy and the man sat in Mr. Incredible's car the feeling caused the machinery to hum, telling the super hero how wonderful the boy it loved was. It told him how brilliant a boy he was, how perfect a sidekick he would be, how much the boy needed this…

Mr. Incredible was just like any other person though, he did not hear the voice of the feeling. He sensed the feeling of course, everyone could sense it now, but he assumed his feeling of pure love was his own feelings for his soon to be bride. He got rid of Buddy and kept driving.

The feeling tried to sooth Buddy as the boy stood fuming on the side of the road. Despite the hurt the boy felt, the feeling was incapable of experiencing anything but love to anyone. It loved Mr. Incredible anyway, but the feeling still loved Buddy more. It loved Bomb Voyage even as he attached an explosive to its most beloved child's cape. It continued to love Mr. Incredible as he snapped at Buddy, sending him home in disgrace. It loved Buddy's father despite everything he had done, loving him even though that night locked Buddy in a closet for his boy-ish crime of adoration and beat the boy's mother until she screamed and cried and died on the cold tile of the kitchen floor.

It loved Buddy the most though. Clung tightly to him as it mourned its failure to save the child's most beloved mother. Just like the bullet that had killed Shadow, the feeling had been unable to stop the fists of Buddy's father so it held onto the child a little bit tighter as the boy sobbed.

Surrounding Buddy in an aura of love so powerful, his father couldn't even bare to look at him, the man instead yelled at the boy, boxing his ears without ever looking at the boy's fiery red hair and sky blue eyes. He shoved his dead wife in a trash bag placing rocks in with her before throwing her into a river at midnight. He went home and hit his son, threatening him with death and worse things if he told.

Buddy never did.

He never told not only because he was terrified of his father, but also because if he told someone of his mother's murder it would become true. Instead, he buried himself in his father's lies to their family, convincing himself that his mother had truly run away with another man and had not been tossed into a river like an unwanted thing. If his mother had run away, there was a chance that she would come back. If she was dead…

When Buddy was fifteen he ran away from home. He brought nothing but his inventions and a little money, but the feeling, his super power, followed him. It followed him out into the Midwest, and tried to make the teen's life easier as he traveled. The rain fell less harshly when Buddy walked or slept outside and the snow fell later and melted earlier when he was around.

To every person Buddy came across the feeling tried to tell them what a wonderful boy this was. How he needed to be taken care of by human hands and treasured. Some people sort of understood the feeling, giving the boy money when he lied and said it was to help him get home or bought him lunch or gave him a place to sleep for the night. There were many more people who didn't understand the words the feeling spoke and instead ignored Buddy. One person, one who didn't understand the words at all, took Buddy aside one cold night.

The feeling tried to protect the boy, but it couldn't stop a person from being evil. It had to love the man who had hurt its beloved boy so badly, loving him even when Buddy wanted to die. With the child in the hospital, the cuts on his arm bandaged tightly and the physiatrist on call, the wind whispered to the nurses dressed in white its love for the boy. It told the women of better times, of happier times, but the women couldn't hear the voice. Instead, they wondered what had happened to the child with the adorable freckles and the fawn like blue eyes that would make him try to die.

After recovering for a short time, Buddy escaped the hospital, running just as hard as he had when he left his father. Now far away, he tried to die again this time doing it the right way. Its boy bleeding away, the voice finally stepped in, the wind screaming for help while the earth sobbed and shook. Though these voices made no noise, an old and kind man heard them and found Buddy. He brought the dying boy to the hospital, visited him as he recovered, and took him home when the child was released.

The feeling rejoiced at the old man. This was a person who would be good for its beloved boy. The man's wife was gentle and kind. They fed the boy and clothed him, doing away with his desire to die and putting him back into school. When he invented they praised him and when he won the state science fair they were just as proud as any parent.

But Buddy still wasn't happy. Late at night when there was only the feeling awake he dreamed of his mother. He dreamed of the man who had hurt him. Sitting on a swing one day, the wind gently pushing his back, he realized that the world wasn't right. The old couple had saved him. They had done away with everything bad and made him happy again. But the old couple weren't super heros. The supers he had worshipped, Mr. Incredible who had rejected him, were gone because of a lawsuit.

A lawsuit!

They were supposed to protect and save people! That's why they had powers, didn't they? They were supposed to stop men from beating their wives to death and abusing their children. They were supposed to arrest bad men before they did things to little boys that made them want to die.

For them to be stopped by a lawsuit of all things! They didn't deserve to be respected. They only deserved to die.

A new found hate now deep in his heart, Buddy cried and the feeling cried with him. Its boy was no longer a boy. Its beloved child had become an angry and bitter man.

Despite Buddy's hate, the feeling loved Buddy no less. It melted under his capable fingers, helping him create inventions that no person had ever dreamed of before Buddy. When he graduated high school, the wind let out a loud cheer as the students whooped and hollered, it was happy at Buddy's pride at being first in his class. The old couple that had taken Buddy in scrimped and saved, getting Buddy into college which he graduated in two years.

Degree in hand, Buddy immediately set his sights at the top. He would become great. He invented and made connections and sold weapons all the while with the feeling surrounding him. He began making lots of money. He sent money back to the old couple that had taken him in, buying them a house in warmer regions at his first chance.

But the old man died of a stoke and the old woman went soon after that. Holding the old woman's hand tightly as she died, Buddy begged for some miracle that would save her. The feeling had the power to raise mountains and level cities if Buddy had so commanded it. It would have covered the world in ocean or sent it spiraling into an ice age if it would have helped. Every power of nature at his disposal and not knowing it, Buddy prayed for the first time in years, but was not answered. The feeling did not have the power to stop people from dying.

The couple had no children so Buddy buried them in pure white coffins with a white marble headstone to cover their graves. The house that he had bought them he sold, but the one they had lived in for so long, the one that had become his home, he kept. That house was in the middle of the suburbs of Illinois, a block away from the place where a little girl had grown up missing an older sister she barely remembered.

Leaving the house after the funeral, Buddy walked past the girl and the feelings that followed them briefly touched. Neither noticed. Buddy too caught up in his thoughts and the girl reading as she went down the street, they passed each other by without a glance or a nod.

Buddy left and continued on with his business. The girl went to college that year and excelled.

Moving on, Buddy continued to make his weapons and sell them. He met a woman named who called herself Mirage who was beautiful and intelligent and said all the things he wanted to hear. He made her his partner. He made more money.

Testing a plane far from shore one day, Buddy discovered an island and fell in love with it instantly. It held everything the feeling was, the water and earth, fire and sky, wrapped up in a tropical paradise far from land. He bought the island from the government, moved all this staff and inventions out there and was happy for a time.

Despite his new home, Buddy wasn't finished yet. He invented more and the feeling no longer had to help him. Brilliant on his own, the feeling simply watched the man it loved so dearly as he continued to excel. At twenty three Buddy began bringing supers to his island, pitting them against his inventions and improving them as necessary. Quickly he realized that the name Buddy would no longer do, so he cast that identity aside. Letting his curly red hair grow out and spiking it up, Buddy became Syndrome. The feeling wasn't sure what to make of that.

The feeling had been around since the beginning of time. It had existed when men still lived in caves and feared the wild, treasuring them and trying to keep them safe from the dangers of their times. But as man evolved the feeling stayed the same, still loving and still treasuring. Eventually, men outgrew the feeling, no longer needing the love of the earth, and so the feeling had given in to their need and left them, going to sleep. It was only upon the birth of a blue eyed boy that the feeling had reawakened, the child's super power demanding the unconditional love the feeling brought.

However, now that child was no more. The man had tossed the child away as weak, just as Syndrome was now tossing the man aside. Only the feeling, the brilliance of the boy, and the super power remained of Buddy, everything else was now Syndrome.

It didn't matter, though. The feeling was not an intelligence so it loved Syndrome just as much as it loved Buddy. However, since Syndrome did not need the feeling like Buddy did, the feeling moved back and away. It came when needed, but it contented itself by watching Syndrome grow and excel in a way no mortal had ever done before.

Then when Syndrome was twenty-seven, everything changed.

It began with Mr. Incredible coming back into his life. The feeling remembered him, just as it remembered every person who had been important to its Buddy. Syndrome remembered the super hero too, but unlike the feeling he hated the man. Remembering how terrible it had been to be rejected by the man he'd so admired, and remembering his mother who had died because of that rejection, Syndrome brought the older man to his island. Mr. Incredible successfully defeated Syndrome's robot so he brought him back again, revealing him to his former hero when the time was right.

Mr. Incredible went off a cliff and into a pool and Syndrome threw a bomb in after him. The former child thought that meant the last of the hero, but the feeling knew otherwise. Loving Syndrome more then it loved Mr. Incredible, the wind made his cape billow and ruffled his hair. He still hadn't remembered the ancient language that he'd known as an infant though, and ignored it.

Things got worse after that.

After recapturing Mr. Incredible and locking him and his family up, Syndrome went to destroy the robot he had unleashed on the city he'd grown up in. The feeling followed, knowing what was going on at the island and trying to warn the one it loved. Then came the disaster of the robot. Despite the fact that machines too loved Syndrome since the steel from their creation was from the earth that adored him, the artificial intelligence had overcome the love, betraying him.

Unconscious, the love at least sent the robot away to destroy other things while the feeling watched over Syndrome as it had done so many times before. Syndrome awoke and the feeling rejoiced, telling him to return to his island paradise and be happy there.

Instead he went to the Mr. Incredible's home. Too easily, he tricked the girl there into handing over the super hero's youngest child and there he waited for the Parrs to return. There he was soundly defeated, the feeling screaming in horror like it had when Buddy had tried to die. However, there was a difference this time. Back in the secluded park Buddy hadn't wanted aid so the feeling had only been able to cry out in despair.

This time, moments from death, Syndrome wanted to live.

It hadn't been able to save Shadow or Buddy's mother, it hadn't been able to stop the old woman from dying, but it could save Buddy.

A word of command, a shout of 'Obey' that would have made a mountain turn to sand and the feeling in the wind and jet made the engine stop. Its beloved would not die at the hands of its own invention.

The feeling still couldn't stop the man called Mr. Incredible though. With a toss of powerful muscles, a car and the jet collided and exploded from the impact together. The feeling in the fire couldn't go against natural order. It couldn't stop from burning Syndrome, but it was able to get him away, the wind helping propel the man as far away as possible. In a deserted park he fell, limply laying on the ground from a thousand wounds that this time had not been his doing.

Bleeding and burned, for the first time since he was an infant Syndrome sensed the feeling. He heard it crying with gentle sobs, telling him how much he was adored and how things would get better. He knew the rain that began misting down was its doing, soothing his hot wounds and making the hard ground a softer place to lie. Wrongly, Syndrome thought that the cries were from his mother, or perhaps from the old man and woman. Closing his eyes he gave up. He still wanted to live, but with those gentle sobs ringing in his ears he assumed he was dying and mentally accepted it.

But the feeling had still not abandoned Syndrome. The feeling in the gadget filled gauntlet refused to stop working, declaring his position to the team that knew their boss was in trouble. The team quickly found their broken, nearly dead boss and brought him away to a secret location. There he spent three long years suffering as the doctors pulled the burned dead skin from his bones and began putting him right.

Blinded by pain, Syndrome vanished leaving Buddy behind. Buddy who cried and sobbed for help. For Mirage to come and take his hand even though he knew she had betrayed him, for his mother who still rested on the bottom of a river bed, for the old woman who had saved him once before.

Only the feeling met his cries though, wrapping itself around him as he suffered in healing tanks and while his life teetered on the edge in surgery. Late at night when Buddy was unable to sleep from the pain and the knowledge that tomorrow would be no better, the feeling sang ancient songs for him that had no words. They were songs of feeling, of love and acceptance and healing. Trapped in nightmares of pain, Buddy heard them and was soothed.

Half a year was spent in this manner, the tanks filled with healing liquid and pain filling his days and misery his night. After that came the body suit that covered his entire body, including his face. The suit was a necessary precaution all burn victims had to go through, but Buddy hated it none the less. It was like a snow suit, itchy, hot, and impossible to move in. He had to wear it twenty four hours a day in order to keep his swelling scars down and to prevent infection. The doctors claimed it was flesh coloured, but no person could look normal in it.

For a year, Buddy spent his every moment trapped in that suit, hating it and himself with every breath. He feared for the day when the suit would come off. Up until now, whenever the doctors removed the suit to change it or inspect his burns he closed his eyes tightly, refusing to see what he had become. The feeling whispered its view of things to Buddy at night. It told him how glad it was for him to be alive and how beautiful he would be no matter what happened to his face or skin.

Two years of physical therapy followed the suit's removal and lifesaving surgeries were replaced with ones that removed the worst of the scars and made Buddy's face look like his own again. Looking into a mirror for the first time in three and a half years, Buddy looked at the face of the stranger. His face had been repaired to the point where it looked almost exactly the same. The freckles were still there, as was his defined jaw line and dimples, but it was no longer _his_ face. His face had been burned away in an explosion no matter how hard the feeling had tried to stop itself from harming him.

The feeling apologized to him, begging forgiveness, but Buddy was becoming himself again and could no longer hear the voice.

On Buddy's thirty-second birthday, just over five years after the disaster, Syndrome returned to his island base. It had been deserted, his inventions cruelly taken from their places and locked away in a NSA lab where they never would be celebrated for the genius they were.

Instead of despairing, Syndrome went to work. The NSA had seized his assets and frozen bank accounts, but for every account they found there had been two they hadn't. With this money, repairs came quickly. He remade connections, selling his inventions again to buyers who were glad to have the brilliant scientist back. Staff filled his halls and corridors. Things were different this time though. Syndrome hired accountants and lawyers who didn't care that they were working for a known villain and had them set his company up so that it would not fall apart so easily again. He brought more services to the island making it less like a fortress and more like its own country or a resort. He corrupted politicians that created laws making things easier for villains and harder for heroes.

Then, in a final slap in the face against Mr. Incredible and all the other supers who believed in justice, the American system and all that crap, he corrupted the American president and bought himself a pardon on the man's last day in office.

The nation went into an uproar. A super villain who had killed a dozen people on his attack against Metroville and had lured many more supers to his island to die had been pardoned? Syndrome was evil! He was everything that good, god-fearing men and women fought against every day! He was _dead_! To think that such a creature could be forgiven even _if_ he had still been alive…

While the nation believed Syndrome still to be dead, the NSA quickly realized otherwise. They attempted to find other charges the man could be brought up on, the presidential pardon being irreversible, but found nothing. Safe on his island, Syndrome laughed, mocking the supers as once again they were stopped by stupid laws. If they had been truly super they would have arrested him anyway.

With Syndrome happy and safe, the feeling was happy as well. On the island there was no end to the sunny, warm days of summer and the feeling fought against the monsoons of winter, bringing gentler rain to the island to please its beloved.

A year later, his position secure and his company growing again, Syndrome realized the one thing he was missing. On the island, surrounded by loyal staff and paradise, he still had no one to talk to. He missed Mirage. He needed Mirage. So he went looking for her.

While he had never forgiven the silver haired woman for her betrayal, Syndrome decided that it had to be done. Pushing aside his hatred and memories of pain, he focused on the good times he and Mirage had while the feeling encouraged him. Shifting through records that were six years old, Syndrome finally found her and went to her home, hoping to beg her back.

What he found made him wish he had never started the journey in the first place.

In a large suburban home he found her kissing her husband –_Mirage married_!- while bouncing her two year old son on her knee. Spying on her, he found she'd left her old life behind her, settling down with a successful man and starting a family.

That the man had a passing resemblance to Mr. Incredible hadn't helped matters though.

That the son had been named Robert Jack had helped even less.

Furious, yet unable to hate her, Syndrome left without ever letting Mirage know he had been there. The feeling accompanied him the long lonely way back to the island, soothing him and reassuring him the entire journey.

Alone on his balcony, the wind caressing his face and hair, Buddy stared up at the stars and sighed. "Now what?" he asked the sky.

The feeling which would have brought any one of those stars down from the sky at his command, didn't know how to reply to its beloved. Instead, it danced and sang about him, whispering its love and waiting for the time when Buddy or Syndrome would recognize it for what it was and make them both happy.


	2. There's a black sheep in every flock

Jasmine Baxter didn't know it, but she was from a family of super heroes. On her father's side there had been Marvel Man and the beautiful Mrs. Marvel who together had inspired an entire generation during the cold war era. Her mother's side boasted the mysterious Xi, famous for his daring capture of Dr. Wrath, and Illusionra, who had been such a rival of Xi that no one ever expected the two would one day be married with seven children.

Jasmine's parents themselves had once been The Flaming Marvel –a super capable to bursting into flames and controlling fire itself- and Static –a petite super with a high pitched scream that could shatter earth- but the two had put all that behind them after they'd had children. First born had been Cynthia.

At six months old, Cynthia delighted her parents and family when they discovered her playing with the shadows of a corner. It had been a family gathering that night, full of old battle stories which made the discovery of the baby's powers that much better. Laughing and patting each other on the back, they joked about how villains had better beware as the infant gathered shadows into clumsy shapes and made them dance across the room. The next day Cynthia was enrolled in a special day care program funded and run by the NSA in order to properly shape the young heroes of tomorrow.

Not yet able to even sit up on her own or crawl, Cynthia's path had been decided. She was going to be a super just like her parents and grandparents. She was going to fight crime. She was going to like it.

When Cynthia was six and first starting super school, her first little sister Laura was born. That day, Cynthia hurried home from school, diving into her Grandfather's waiting car. She did her homework the entire way to the state hospital that specialized in everything super related.

As her parents and grandparents celebrated the birth of their second grandchild, Cynthia snuck off, going to look at the glass window that separated the world from the crying children of supers within. Six babies had been born that day. Shadows were not the only thing Cynthia could see though and as she looked the at auras of the babies that appeared. Laura was the only one without powers.

Cynthia sighed. She didn't know if she was supposed to be relieved or disappointed that her little sister wasn't going to be joining her in super school. With no super powers Laura would be enrolled in a regular school instead of one just for supers. At super school there were no other children there Cynthia's age, and the six year old was lonely. She understood that what she was learning was going to one day benefit the world, but still she wished she could go to a normal school for no other reason then to be able to have people to play with.

Laura would not be lonely.

Instead she would be bitter.

Her parents never tried to talk about the fact that Laura wasn't a super when the small girl was around, but she still knew she was different. Cynthia was her parent's golden child; she went to a special school and got to learn interesting things while Laura was ignored. She never realized how lonely her older sister was. How Cynthia would stare after her with envy in her eyes whenever Laura went over to a friend's house to play.

Feeling neglected by her parents and blaming Cynthia for this, Laura moved away from the super world, becoming engrossed in her friends and the normalcy they brought. If Laura didn't have super powers, that meant her parents and Cynthia were the freaks. After all, all Laura's friends didn't have super powers. Only the hated family did. Drifting apart and fighting more and more Cynthia one day realized something terrible.

Her sister actually hated her because of her powers. She actually hated her family as well. Cynthia was 'super' and 'special' and everything Laura couldn't be even if she tried. She tried to show her sister that this wasn't true, that Laura was just as super and special even if she had no powers, but the hurt was too big to be undone. The two sisters would never be able to repair the rift between them. At the time, Cynthia was fourteen and Laura was eight.

A year later, Jasmine was born.

Jasmine had been a surprise to the entire family. Her parents hadn't planned on having another child, but they were happy to have her in any case. The family was called and they laughed together once more, joking on whether the developing child was going to be a girl or boy. If it was going to be a super or not.

Both Cynthia and Laura selfishly prayed for the things they wanted. Neither cared if it was a sister or brother, but Laura wanted a sibling without powers. A normal in the family would better justify her existence, securing her in the knowledge that it wasn't her that was the oddity, but the rest of her family. Cynthia prayed the baby would be a super. Her relationship with Laura still in shambles and having no friends besides a few supers from school, Cynthia believed that if her new sibling wasn't a super he or she would come to hate her too. Up to and during delivery they prayed, hoping against hope that they would be right.

In a way they both were.

While her parents were being congratulated by family, both girls snuck away to look at the babies much like Cynthia had when Laura had been born. Laura left first, not seeing anything that set the red faced infant apart from the rest of the babies in the room. For a grueling year afterwards, the nine year old would wait to see if her new little sibling showed any hint of powers. She never did and Laura was pleased.

Using her eyes that could see through almost everything, Cynthia discovered the correct answer to that question much earlier. Unlike the other babies which held auras denoting future flights, x-ray vision, super strength, or super speed, little Jasmine's aura held only love. It was an almost blinding power, one that made Cynthia turn away and shield her eyes as she wondered if she should laugh or cry. Her littlest sister was a super. This sibling at least wouldn't hate her.

There was something odd about Jasmine's power though, something Cynthia didn't realize until after her parents had given up on their youngest being a super and registered her as a normal. The feeling of love that surrounded Jasmine never affected anything or anyone that surrounded her. Instead, the feeling seemed to grow and wane depending on the baby's surroundings. In her parent's super car, the high tech ride filled with the latest in crime fighting technology, the aura was brightest and Jasmine was happiest while when they were on vacation in the country the aura vanished to almost nothing and the baby would cry almost non-stop.

In order to please her sister, Cynthia took to bringing home little gadgets and toys she could talk the technology geeks at her school (none of these boys were supers, but they had been hand picked by the NSA to be trained by the super's sides for when they were providing the supers inventions) into making for her. At first her parents had questioned giving the expensive toys to their youngest child, but Jasmine was happy with them. Excited by this development her parents talked of sending Jasmine to the super school anyway, training her to be an inventor. Laura didn't like this talk, but pretended to ignore it.

When Jasmine was one, Cynthia graduated super school and was sent out into the world to become her own super. Standing before a mirror in a shadowy grey super suit, Cynthia wondered what was going to become of her. She was sixteen, had no friends, and never had been on a date before. For years she had been going to a school that trained her that she was above the world and so had to protect everyone in it no matter what her feelings were on the matter. She had gone out on missions as a side kick with Elastigirl and had enjoyed that time with the fellow super very much.

Elastigirl had been assigned to be Cynthia's super when the child was fourteen. Fourteen was the average age that side kicks were assigned giving them two years practical crime fighting experience before joining a super group such as Teen Justice who fought villains as both individuals and in teams. Elastigirl had been young to be given a sidekick, only nineteen. Later, the brown haired super hero would say that it had been her fault Cynthia had died. That she hadn't trained the girl well enough. Everyone knew that wasn't so. Cynthia had died because a bank robber had a gun filled with armor piercing bullets. A kind that Edna Mode, costumer of the heroes, had never seen before.

Her death only a little over a year away, Cynthia looked into the mirror at her new super suit and tried to smile. Turning dramatically, billowing her cape, Cynthia turned to her parents and Jasmine and struck a pose. "How do I look?" she asked, a hopeful tone in her voice.

As her parent's praised her, Cynthia looked to Jasmine for approval. Laura had refused to attend her sister's great unveiling, instead going over to a friend's house to spend the night. Jasmine was the only one there that could give Cynthia true approval and the little girl did just that. Clapping her hands excitedly, Jasmine had run around her older sister, squealing in delight. Laughing, Cynthia swooped her sister up using her powers, holding the younger girl aloft with shadows as she let her fly more shades dancing around them.

Putting down her sister, and slipping on her mask, Cynthia became Shadow and went into the night for the first time on her own. After stopping by to visit Elastigirl who admired the slight shimmer to the fabric of her cape, Shadow spent a boring evening on the rooftop of a building waiting for something to happen. At midnight, her shift over, she went to one of the local technology suppliers and bought her sister a new toy.

It was only as she headed home that she ran across the fire.

Springing into action, Shadow bravely dove inside the building, never noticing how usual this blaze was compared to the ones NSA set for training exercises. The flames themselves seemed to pull back and blaze up in an almost deliberate manner, leading her to a fourth story apartment where a mother and child were trapped. Grabbing the five year old boy and helping the mother along, Shadow hesitated only once in their escape. For upon leaving the relatively untouched room where the two had been, the entire apartment suddenly burst into flames as if a sudden strain had been relieved.

Safely outside and by the paramedics, Shadow continued to hold the red headed blue eyed boy. Smiling softly as firefighters and police congratulated her on the rescue, Shadow quickly turned her attention to the boy, wondering why it was that she was so reluctant to let him go. She looked at him with her eyes and smiled.

He had the same aura as her sister. One that spoke of a power driven by pure love and adoration. If anything this power was more intense in the boy, as if he was loved by everything and not just technology like Jasmine. Pulling out the toy she had intended to give her sister, Shadow gave the bauble to the boy instead. His eyes lit up in delight at it and she laughed, returning him to his mother and leaving with a clear conscious.

Two months later she died.

Like all supers, the passing of Shadow was never mentioned. Instead, she vanished from papers and memory like she had never existed. The NSA frowned upon obituaries of supers getting into papers. It made their heroes seem less then perfect, fallible.

Human.

Cynthia's death was listed as an accident.

Shadow's coffin was pure black and covered with white roses when they buried her. On her grave her parents opted to only put her name, too saddened and horrified by their daughter's death to bare the thought of how she had died and for what reason. With her parents crying, and her biggest sister sleeping in a scary box, Jasmine cried too, not knowing what anything meant. The feeling that followed her, combined with the feeling of the boy made the sky cry too, to replace the tears Laura never shed.

For Laura knew why her sister had died. It had been because she never had the chance to be normal like everyone else. Her parents had pushed Cynthia to be a freak, forcing her to use her super powers like a dog on command instead of letting her live a happy life of freedom. Casting her flower down on her sister's grave, Laura swore not to allow the same thing to happen to her or Jasmine. They would be normal. They would be normal no matter what.

As luck would have it, at the death of their oldest, Laura and Jasmine's parents decided that they had had enough of the super business too. To the surprise of their parents and fellow supers, the two decided to move their family away from Metroville. Laura's father got a job in Illinois and the family moved to the suburbs there. Neither parent ever used their super powers again, and forbade their parents from even bringing up the mention of supers around their children. Settled into a new area where supers no longer mattered, Laura flourished becoming happier then ever before.

Jasmine simply grew up, never recognizing her super power and having it go unrecognized by all that surrounded her. Since for her the feeling that followed her only appeared when the girl was surrounded by technology, everyone dismissed the feeling as Jasmine projecting her own love for all things advanced. Instead she grew up in an entirely unremarkable way, perhaps doing a little better in computer based classes then others, but nothing that really brought attention down on her.

One equally unremarkable day, when Jasmine was eighteen, she picked up a book and decided to take a walk around the block. In a few hours she would have to get into her parent's car and drive for hours to go to Laura's wedding, but for now she was free to be out in the bright sun.

As she walked and read she passed by a man who had just lost an old woman that had once saved him when all the supers had vanished away. He had a more powerful version of the feeling she too had with her always, and briefly the two feelings met although neither realized it. Jasmine simply kept walking, never even noticing the fiery red hair and blue eyes of the man before her, and the man never even looked to see the brown hair and green eyes of the girl reading her book.

Later that year Jasmine went off to college. She did well in all her classes, receiving a major in Mechanical Engineering since that was where the feeling that surrounded her was strongest. Not the top in her class, Jasmine still managed to easily get a job, flying one autumn's day to New York to pursue her future.

Surrounded by technology each day, the feeling was finally able to love its girl properly. For the first time it surrounded her with the pure love the boy had been caught up in his entire life. For the first time people took a step away from Jasmine, the feeling that she was a little odd coming to them. They dismissed it as her being eccentric, and Jasmine dismissed the strength of the feeling as excitement over her new job, but slowly the girl and her co-workers began to draw apart.

Since the feeling was mostly based in machinery and technology, the feeling encouraged Jasmine to surround herself in these things. When that wasn't enough for either of them, it began to whisper ideas in her head. Plans for inventions. Still unused to the feeling, Jasmine heard the voices and put the words down onto paper. Her co-workers marveled at her designs, but the company had little use for them. They were merely gadgets, things to bring the feeling closer to Jasmine, but didn't have much practical value in the world.

Jasmine built the feeling's inventions anyway, the feeling guiding her hands as she struggled to bring the designs into reality. Under the feeling she built tiny little devices that hovered and zoomed about, made improvements to different computer systems, and made her car run as if it was a Corvette instead of a station wagon. This feeling was greedy though, demanding more and more of Jasmine as time progressed. There were still times when the feeling faded, times when Jasmine couldn't be surrounded by technology and the feeling wanted to do away with these times.

More intelligent then the feeling that followed the boy, Jasmine's feeling came up with a plan. It would create a body for itself using its girl. A physical body that wouldn't be hampered by times or locations like the rest of the technology were. Thinking up a design, the feeling placed it into Jasmine's mind, adding an almost fanatical need to get it made. The feeling gaining more power over her each day, Jasmine obeyed, taking time off work and not pausing to sleep or eat until the feeling was satisfied.

The result was a mechanized squirrel. Silver and chrome coloured the squirrel was the same size as a real one, moving the same as well. Upon completion, Jasmine staggering off to bed, the feeling went inside the machine, taking it over completely. Giving the invention more intelligence then its limited programming should have allowed, the feeling was able to finally join Jasmine in all she did. That night, it slept with her in her bed, resting tiny paws on her hand as it waited for its beloved girl to awaken.

The feeling's demands had drained Jasmine and she was slower and more sluggish then usual those days after so the feeling decided to make no more demands of her. Instead, it went back to purely loving her, content with its new body and ability to always be with her.

No longer hampered by the feeling's demands Jasmine looked grimly at her life and found it lacking. The feelings pushing had driven her co-workers away from her, making them view her as odd and unapproachable. Now on top of things she had that strange machine that looked like a squirrel always following her around. Jasmine herself didn't seem to fully know where it had come from, only saying that she had made it and nothing more when questioned. The invention's sudden arrival worried people and the concentrated presence of the feeling made them nervous.

Unable to count the people who feared her as friends, Jasmine looked to others for companionship. However, the feeling drove those people away as well making the girl more lonely then she'd ever been in her life. Wondering what she could do to bring her out of this depression, Jasmine never even considered that the squirrel may have had something to do with it. The feeling still had power over her and so refused to allow her to think of such things.

Lonely except for the squirrel, Jasmine spent her twenty fifth birthday crying and alone while the feeling tried to comfort her. It tried to tell her that everything was going to be all right, that she didn't need people when she had it. Jasmine had gotten used to the feeling though, and had gotten to the point where she was starting to dismiss and forget about it. She never heard the feeling pleading with her to cheer up, instead she put on her shortest skirt, covered her red puffy eyes with makeup and went to a bar.

There she met Eddie, and she stopped being lonely for a time.

Eddie was tall and strong. Handsome, with a smile and twinkle in his eye that made every woman he gazed at flush and almost swoon. That he paid attention to her that night made Jasmine the happiest girl in the room, blind and deaf to everything that surrounded her. They met again the next weekend and with a sheepish look in his eye, Eddie had told Jasmine about his problem. He was in between jobs at the moment and was running out of cash to keep his apartment and if she would could she…

Instantly, Jasmine invited him to live with her and he grinned at her happily, pressing his lips to hers as she trembled from emotion. He moved in on a sunny Friday afternoon, his truck pulling into the driveway of her small house. Feeling blissful, Jasmine helped settle him in, cooked him food and happily sharing her bed with him for the first time that night. Eddie didn't move away when the squirrel possessed by the feeling came into the room. At first he didn't even seem to recognize the fact that the invention was even there.

At first.

Three weeks after moving in, Eddie convinced Jasmine that she had to quit her job. During their time together he'd found a good position working construction downtown and insisted that he would be able to support her, that it wasn't right for Jasmine to be making more then her boyfriend. So she quit her job and her co-workers let out a sigh of relief that the odd girl and her creepy squirrel would no longer be around.

Eddie's construction job didn't last. No longer able to afford mortgage payments, they sold the house, moving into a tiny apartment in a dark and dangerous part of the city. Things went bad,

Screaming at her to find a job, Eddie began to drink. But Jasmine's good engineering job was gone and her co-workers didn't want her back. She became a waitress instead. Now sensing the feeling that surrounded Jasmine, Eddie thought the feeling of love meant his girlfriend was seeing other men behind his back. So he hit her, screaming at her he called her every name under the sun, insisting she was his and his alone. Jasmine accepted this, dropping her eyes in public and living only for him.

However, the feeling could no accept this. It came to hate the surroundings that Eddie put its beloved girl in, hated the job where she was pawed at by her boss, and hated the apartment where the people next door fought and no one called the police when its girl was beaten. With Jasmine become miserable from her dreary surroundings, the feeling gained more power over her again, whispering suggestions and plans to her. But Jasmine had convinced herself that she loved Eddie and refused to listen, working the job she too hated and accepting his blows as if they were gentle kisses.

The feeling changed tactics, fueling Jasmine with the desire to invent again. This power the feeling still held over her and she obeyed, going through the trash and buying stray parts whenever she could. The feeling planned that when Jasmine had made enough, it would be able to forcefully take its beloved girl from this place. That, or kill Eddie. Whichever was easier.

And the feeling hated Eddie the most.

Perhaps he was able to sense the feeling intent or perhaps he was just angry and drunk, but Eddie smashed every invention Jasmine made. He broke them to pieces, taking a sledgehammer to the ones he couldn't pull apart with his fists. If Jasmine cried and tried to stop her, he hit her too. He never touched the squirrel though. The vassals of the feeling were destroyed as soon as they were done, but the feeling itself was untouchable.

Drunk and spent and sleeping was Eddie that night when Jasmine went out onto their fire escape and stared up at the sky. Her eye was black and her lip was swollen and bleeding from that night's beating when Eddie had discovered her latest inventions hidden away with the dirty laundry. Following her outside, the squirrel used the bars of the escape ladder as a way to leap onto its beloved girl's shoulder, pressing its paws to her ear and whispering more inventions into her mind.

For the first time, Jasmine brushed the squirrel away, knocking it from her shoulder to softly land on the grating of the floor. Ignoring the bafflement of the feeling, she stared up, trying to spot a star in the night sky. The lights of New York were too bright though and she saw none.

She sighed. "Is this all there is?" Jasmine asked night sky. Her tone was pleading, begging. She needed something else from this place, something more… Something better…

At her feet, the feeling offered her a thousand possible inventions all designed to bring her away from this place and hopefully kill Eddie at the same time. Pushed and prodded in her own mind, Jasmine found her eyes filling with tears and wondered when her chance to be happy would come.


	3. Diligence is the mother of good fortune

Eddie's shouts rang through her ears as her vision clouded. She couldn't breath, could barely move with the larger and stronger man's body on top of her, his hand tightly around her neck. Trembling on the borderline between wakefulness and death, Jasmine let out a scream that never crossed her lips.

_Somebody save me!_

A hard and sharp object was nudged into her hand. Reflexively, her fingers closed around it, grasping it tightly.

_Save yourself_, a voice whispered coldly in her ear.

Using the last of her strength, Jasmine struck Eddie with the object, hitting him in the side of the head. Something hot and wet splashed across her face and Eddie screamed and screamed as Jasmine fell away into the abyss, the laughter of the voice following her as she blacked out.

-

-

Syndrome groaned as the sunlight that spilled through his bedroom window, awakening him from his sleep. Another beautiful morning in paradise. Despite the sun shining only for him, Syndrome slammed his curtains shut. "Stupid sun," he muttered going into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He felt terrible. Staggering to the sink and grabbing his toothbrush he made a mental note to never mix whiskey and vodka with Kool-Aid ever again. It didn't matter if those were the only things left to drink in his island apartment, he could just spend the night sober instead of waking with this bad a headache.

"Good morning sir," the computerized mirror greeted Syndrome as he expertly began to gel up his hair. "How are you on this wonderful Tuesday morning?"

"Yeah, whatever," Syndrome muttered, rolling his eyes. Installing a technology driven mirror had seemed like such a good idea at the time. It could tell him his schedule and any news of interest reducing the time he had to spend with that terrible secretary Susan or Rebecca or something… The one that always stared at him with that disapproving look on her face! Briefly, he considered firing the secretary (as he always did on mornings where the mirror annoyed him) but decided against it. Disapproving or not, the woman got her job done and made his life easier. So for now at least he was stuck with the mirror.

"Your schedule for Tuesday, March 28, 2006 is… open."

Syndrome paused in mid comb. "Really?" he asked, surprised. "My schedule's never open."

Assuming it still had to answer a question, the mirror calculated the reason for its master's lack of meetings and spoke. "Tuesday, March 28, 2006 at 1 AM you ordered a clearing of your schedule for this day."

Hmm… Now had he done that for a reason, or had he canceled his day due to drunken annoyance?

…He couldn't remember.

Pinning his gelled hair in place with hairspray, Syndrome stalked out of his bathroom, flung open the closet and nearly swooned. He'd been moving too fast and his body had finally decided to fully punish the intelligence in it for the amount of alcohol it had been forced to consume that night.

Dizzy, he staggered to the kitchen area of his apartment and shakily poured himself a glass of coffee. Now collapsed at the kitchen table, cup of coffee in hand, the super villain wondered what had happened to him.

Syndrome had never been the type to drink, the memory of his father had seen to that, but he had never abstained completely from alcohol. After all, there were business parties to go to and investors to entertain and refusing champagne or wine was actually considered something of an insult in those settings. But whiskey and vodka and _Kool-Aid_? That sounded like a drunken frat boy combination of illness and liver failure.

It had to stop.

So why had it started.

The urge to have a drink came over him and he groaned. _Mirage_. Was he still mooning over her? Considering he was looking at his coffee and wondering what he could lace it with that answer had to be yes. Yes, he still missed Mirage even if she was a traitorous backstabbing bitch. Despite everything he still considered her _his_ backstabbing bitch and the fact that she'd gone off and married some Mr. Incredible clone and named her squealing brat after the hero's secret identity _hurt_.

She of all people would have known the precautions he'd set up in the event he had failed. Hell, she had forced him to implement most of them! Mirage should have known he was alive. Backstabber or not she should have waited for him, should have come crawling back. At least then he would have gotten the chance to get properly furious at her. Instead he felt… Betrayed.

He snorted, sipping his coffee. Oh yeah, that was brilliant. He'd been betrayed, so he felt betrayed. It took rocket science to figure that out.

No really… The fact that she'd released the Incredibles and sent them after him had hurt, but the fact that she seemed to have forgotten all about him hurt more. Late at night she had always whispered about how important he was to her. How special. How super… He'd believed those words. He supposed that he never should have…

No longer dizzy and his mind clearing, Syndrome dumped out his cooling coffee. Well if Mirage could forget about him, then he could forget about her, he resolutely decided. And he wouldn't forget her by using mind altering substances either. In order to strengthen his resolution, he quickly poured out the remaining alcohol in his apartment.

There.

…Now what?

Catching himself wondering if a memory wiper would count as a 'mind altering substance,' Syndrome shook his head in disgust. What had happened to him? Why was he acting all needy and pathetic? He was Syndrome! Syn-freaking-drome, people! He didn't _need_ to get all whiney and mopey about this, he needed to get focusing on the big picture again.

He was back after five long years, bigger and badder then before. Business was booming, his inventions were greater then ever before, and his empire was secure from the NSA and their annoying prodding ways.

Sure, he didn't have the element of surprise anymore, and sure supers were allowed to be out and about like before, but that didn't stop any other super villains from having fun, now did it? New super villains were popping up at a rapid pace, already outnumbering the amount of recognized supers in most cities. However, many of these new villains were annoying, easily defeatable, worthless little snobs. It was time for a real villain to come into the picture.

The time was ripe for his return.

But Syndrome wasn't going to be considered the most dangerous villain ever just by charging in and causing some mass destruction. Unlike most of these new 'theme' villains he was smart. He was original. He was a former super hero stalker.

The beauty of his original Omni-droid plan had been in the fact that he had wiped out so many supers to test the design. It made the final version that much better, that much more invincible. However, despite all his care in the design, the Omni-droid had been defeated by a team of supers containing three out of practice old timers and two newcomers.

Note the word 'team.'

In the world there were really two major groups of supers. Those that worked in teams and those that did not. Team supers, like New York's Fantastic Four and Metroville's Inredibles, were more likely to succeed at everything they did, but were less likely to receive individual credit. Hence, the much larger population of individual supers. However, individual supers (while receiving more credit and being more popular) lost more villains then a team. An individual super could be overpowered or snuck up on, a team always had one more person capable of getting the job done.

Villains on the other hand rarely worked together. Sure, occasionally there were massive team ups that reigned fear and destruction down upon a city, but usually it was always one villain, a plan, and a team of henchmen going against a super. Two villain teams were rare things. In fact, the only regular villain team he could think of that were big name was the Joker and Harley Quinn. Now those two were a force to be feared.

Said to be Batman's number one foe, the Joker had more then once brought Gotham to its knees. And that Harley Quinn? Not only was she gorgeous, but she was also deadly and she always let Joker run the show. Capable on her own, the female clown had occasionally gone on her own crime sprees or had teamed up with another female villain named Poison Ivy, but really Harley lived for the Joker. She was his bait and backup and henchman all rolled into one.

That was what he needed, Syndrome decided as he poured out the rest of his alcohol. He and Mirage had been part of a team, but when there was action to be done Mirage stayed behind and Syndrome went to meet the fray. Of course, that _had_ been what he wanted. Syndrome hadn't been content with the idea of sharing the spotlight, but after researching Gotham's baddest the idea of a… side kick was no longer something he could just torture Mr. Incredible about.

In fact a side kick was a fine idea! Not a child side kick, oh no, it was a super's job to put children into harm's way. Besides, when children side kicks grew up it was expected of them to go out into the world on their own. He needed someone older, a teenager or something…

The more Syndrome thought about this new side kick plan, the more familiar it became to him. Hadn't he been thinking all this before? He had to have been, the hero/villain fighting patterns seemed too researched in his mind to just be information he'd picked up here or there.

Dumping the last whiskey bottle in the trash, Syndrome went to his computer terminal, the machine springing to life as he approached. He had a vague recollection of spending a lot of time at his computer last night and of first coming up with the side kick idea he'd just remembered. Bringing up last night's data Syndrome first brought up his saved data files to see if he'd typed up anything more to his idea. The data files were worthless though, full of drunken invention ideas and rambling sentences that made no sense. Frowning, Syndrome checked his internet history instead.

He leaned back in his chair, smiling slightly as he went through the first few pages. His mental image of the beautiful Harley Quinn really did no justice to the woman. Websites full of pictures of the woman collected from lucky witnesses or security cameras showed her perfect figure as she draped herself over the Joker's arm. Too bad Mirage hadn't had a body like that, he ideally thought, if she had he would have stopped at nothing until he had her wearing a skin tight bodysuit all day. Too bad Harley was in love with a psychotic mass murdering clown obsessed with a man that dressed up like a bat too. He would have loved to invite her over and… talk to her.

Although pages of the sexy clown was amusing, Syndrome couldn't shake the feeling that he had truly discovered something important last night so he continued on. As websites about the banes of Gotham were left behind more pages of newer villains replaced them. Studying the profile of a rather attractive super villainess named Cyclone, Syndrome sighed. Sure, these women were lovely creatures bent on destruction, but half of them were supers while the other half were insane. All of them seemed to hate men too, employing them only as henchmen or working absolutely alone. There was no way he would be able to convince one of them to join him, especially if he told them they were to always play second fiddle to him.

Regular news followed profiles on supers and while the current baseball stats were… _interesting_ it did nothing to help him.

Figuring that he hadn't discovered anything while drunk, Syndrome almost gave up before deciding to check the last two pages he'd visited anyway. The first page was a news site reporting on how a trial in New York was coming to an end, the jury currently deliberating on their verdict. Skimming the summery of the case with disinterest, Syndrome almost went to the next page when he stopped suddenly, his eyes resting on a single word. Going back he read the case summery from the beginning.

It was a case of domestic abuse going too far, he quickly realized as he mind considered the possibilities. The neighbors reported that late one night Edward Harrison had been beating his girlfriend as usual when suddenly he began screaming. They heard him burst into the hall, screaming for help and for the first time in three years the neighbors did something neighborly. Leaving their apartment they went to see what was wrong.

When they got there, Edward was dead in the hall. He had been stabbed up to the hilt with a kitchen knife in the head. The neighbors called the police who arrived and declared Edward DOA. They were also the first to enter the dead man's apartment, unsure on what to find. What they did find was Jasmine Baxter, age twenty-nine, unconscious on the floor and covered in blood. Windpipe almost crushed, she had been rushed to the hospital.

Two hours later, just as a doctor was about to formally start the autopsy, Eddie awoke screaming and raging. He was a super. One who's super power brought him back to life much like the mythical phoenix.

Despite the fact that upon awakening, he was fine, Eddie had insisted that charges be pressed. With the full force of the NSA behind him, and the most recent laws regarding the killing of supers backing him up, Eddie demanded Jasmine be charged with assault with a deadly weapon and murder in the first degree.

A slight smirk crossed Syndrome's face. Those laws, those ridiculous new super laws, had really been all his fault. After getting his pardon , announcing his return to the NSA, the government agency had flipped enacting law after law that would nail Syndrome in the event he returned to his old ways. He laughed, leaning back into his chair. The fools had never even considered that he would be too clever to fall into their hands so easily. He had changed, evolved. Instead of capturing their intended target, the NSA had caught a rather helpless girl in their web.

In a way he felt sorry for her. If her boyfriend had been anything but a super she would have never had this case go to trial. The police would have easily been able to label the case as a murder in self defense and the girl would have gone home free with only nightmares to follow her. Unfortunately for her, her boyfriend had been a super. An unforgiving super as well considering those powers of his prevented him from dying in the first place.

Jasmine's trial was just about finished, the jury having been dismissed to deliberate just the other day. Just by reading the single article, Syndrome knew that there had to be pages upon pages of debate on this case. For one thing there was the fact that the girl was being charged for murder even though her victim was alive despite the fact that he'd been dead earlier. Then there was the self defense aspect which didn't matter anyway because the girl had killed a super who hadn't really died but had and-

Supers just made everything more difficult.

Tapping his hands on the desk, Syndrome stared at the news article and thought. The girl was almost certain to get off. The neighbors had told the court about the many times they had heard Edward yelling while the doctors reported evidence of a history of abuse found on the girl's body. Considering the night of the killing the girl had been brought in half dead, it was assumed by all that the girl had somehow grabbed the knife while being choked and had stabbed the boyfriend defending herself. Super or no super, this Eddie guy had pushed his girlfriend too far and the jury was sure to realize that and sympathize accordingly.

Now would she be a good sidekick? As interesting a person this girl was with her killing of a super, it was unlikely she would ever be a good side kick. According to the article, the girl and the super had been dating for some time and the girl had been terribly upset when she's learned of her boyfriend's supposed death.

Syndrome needed someone who would cheerfully help him in his quest to eradicate all supers. Someone who actually wanted to kill them instead of accidentally offing one in self defense. Dismissing the girl from mind he went to the last page in his history.

It was a picture of the girl as she sat in the court room. While he knew that she'd never work, Syndrome looked anyway. Dressed in the unflattering bright orange jumpsuit all convicts wore, Jasmine still managed to look half way decent. Her face was heart shaped and covered in bruises. Her form was small and fragile looking. A small silver and chrome toy squirrel sat at her-

A toy squirrel?

Syndrome frowned, focusing on the small object at the girl's feet. _Voila!_ part of his mind sang at him as he zoomed in on the creature. Made out of tiny pieces of metal and held together by screws, the squirrel was staring directly at the camera with tiny black eyes. A slow smile crossing Syndrome's face he went to his closet and pulled out a normal looking suit from the shelves.

While a girl who killed a super didn't need to be looked into, one that had killed a super and had an advanced looking gadget hanging around their feet was definitely someone he had to meet. He hit the comm unit that connected his room to his secretary's desk. "Hey, Amy."

There was a long pause. "Yes sir?" Sophie Winters said, trying not to get annoyed with her boss for forgetting her name… Again…

"Get the jet prepped for takeoff and inform my lawyers I want to meet them in New York immediately, understand?"

"Yes sir. Shall I arrange living accommodations there for you as well?"

Hesitating only a moment, Syndrome thought about it. Well first he had to get to the girl, convince her to join him, then wait for her to be released so… "Yeah, we'll be there a week."

"Very good sir. You're jet will be ready shortly."

Without a word of thanks, Syndrome headed to the shower to wash all the gel and hairspray out of his hair. As much as he loved the fiery windswept look he made his trademark, he couldn't make it too obvious that he was in New York. After all, the NSA was still gunning for him. Toweling off, Syndrome slipped into his suit, packed quickly and was off.

He had a side kick to pick up.

-

-

While lawyers visiting their clients wasn't that odd of an occurrence at the jail, the fact that four well dressed lawyers had descended upon them all at once all demanding to see the same prisoner had been remarkable to say the least. The Warden hadn't really cared though. If some prisoner had made a big enough headline that some firm wanted to make a charity case out of them then fine.

It was the Warden's job to be suspicious though, so he glared at the lawyers in an intimidating manner. He knew it wouldn't work, criminal lawyers didn't even have a fear of god, but he glared none the less. The tall man with bright red hair, blue eyes, and freckles glared back. While that man never spoke nor offered his name or credentials, he seemed to be the leader in the group of high powered leeches. The Warden disliked that man the most because of it. Besides, those strangely clear blue eyes looked familiar.

"When can we see our client?" one of the lawyers demanded, a cool look on his face.

Turning away from the red headed man, the Warden focused on this shorter blond man instead. "According to this," he said holding up a folder, "you aren't the gal's lawyers. She's being defended by the one of the state's boys, not you."

"Such defense as provided by the state has a history of being unreliable and easy to defeat," the blond man said a note of disgust in his voice. "We are Ms. Baxter's new defense team."

Turning to glare at the red headed man again, the Warden scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Does Baxter know about that?" he asked, grinning slightly.

The only female lawyer in the group stepped in between the Warden and the red headed man, forcing the old man to look at her. "Once we are able to see our client, she will," the woman said. "Now, when will we see Ms. Baxter?"

Still having a bad feeling about the red headed fellow the Warden shrugged. "There are laws that say I can't stop ya from seeing her," he growled, depressing a button. "Course in the good ol' days law said we could treat these prisoners like they deserved. Now it's like a god damn hotel in here."

Ignoring the man as he began to rant, the blond lawyer grabbed the note of permission the Warden scrawled out and led the march from the room. Shoving the slip onto a guard, he nodded the red headed man into a meeting room as the remaining three people fanned out to wait.

Entering the empty room, Syndrome smirked as he heard the sound of jail cells slamming far away. To think, had he been captured after the plane explosion he would have been stuck in a place like this for life… Or at least until he escaped. Now, safe behind his presidential pardon, Syndrome could come and go as he pleased. Of course, the pardon trick would only work once.

Setting his briefcase down on the room's steel table, Syndrome sat in a chair and began to wait. He didn't have to wait long, the door across from him opening up as a shackled, orange clad figure was escorted in. Without ever looking at him, the guard brought the prisoner inside, roughly removing the shackles before shoving the girl into an empty seat. "Knock when you're done," he instructed, leaving the room and slamming the door behind him.

Syndrome watched him go, a single eyebrow raised. Gladder then ever that he wasn't stuck here himself, he looked at the girl. Green eyes met blue as Jasmine awkwardly shifted in her chair, a confused look coming over her face. "You're not my lawyer," she said quietly her eyes dropping to the table.

He smiled at her disarmingly. "No I'm not, Ms. Baxter. I'm a business man, one with a very lucrative offer for you to help you get out of here."

"Get out?" Jasmine repeated, her eyes meeting his for half a second before dropping back down again. "My lawyer's going to get me out of jail, sir."

"Actually, that's where I think you're wrong," Syndrome said, leaning forward. "Your lawyer doesn't care one bit if he gets you out of jail or not. All he cares about is sucking up to the NSA who are doing their best to prosecute you." He studied Jasmine careful, noting the way she shrank down into her seat as he spoke. "Did you know, that they're talking about bringing the ol' electric chair out of retirement just for you?"

Jasmine bit her lip, her eyes glazing over. Obviously she knew and she was worried about it. After a long moment she looked up at him, her eyes still not meeting his. "How can you help me?" she asked quietly, her voice shaking.

"I can make the jury vote non-guilty."

Sniffling, Jasmine wiped away tears as they began to fall. "How? The jury's already been dismissed to deliberate. Even if you got me a new lawyer he couldn't-"

"Who said anything about a new lawyer?" Syndrome interrupted, his smiled changing into a sly smirk. "Ms. Baxter I'm offering to buy your jury for you."

"Buy?"

"You know, bribery. To secure their vote I'll simply offer them a large sum of money in exchange for their voting you free."

Jasmine stared at him a look of surprise on her face. Tears forgotten, she gazed at the suit wearing man before her. Was this guy for real? "You can't _ buy_ people and make them change their vote," she protested.

Syndrome smiled at her. "And why not? It's worked pretty well for me so far. Hell, buy a presidential pardon I can bribe twelve soon to be wealthier people into letting you go."

"Pesidential pardon?" Jasmine's brow crinkled up. "No one can buy the president, Mr… Mr… Uh…"

He stretched his right hand across the table, grabbing hold of Jasmine's hand and holding it tight. "Please just call me Syndrome," he said gently, shaking her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Jasmine."

At the sound of her name crossing the villain's lips, Jasmine went pale. She snatched her hand away, her green eyes going wide as she stared at him. "Syndrome? But you're supposed to be-"

"Dead?" he chuckled, enjoying the shocked look that was covering Jasmine's face. "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I am glad that you've heard of me though. It makes things much easier."

Jasmine looked away, anxiously rubbing the hand he had grabbed. "How could I have not heard of you?" she asked quietly. "Metroville is so close to New York that your name was in every newspaper for weeks. Not to mention you were the first super villain in so long… and that the government reversed the Super Relocation Act almost immediately after you vanished…" She looked up at him, her eyes full of fear. "What do you want?"

Syndrome moved his briefcase so that it was between them, opening it in such a way that Jasmine couldn't see its contents. "I want to hire you," he said shortly, rummaging around. "I read a news story about your case and was intrigued when I saw a little robotic squirrel by your feet." He grabbed out a picture and slid it over to her. It was the picture of her in court, the squirrel's head resting on her foot. "This. Who made it?"

"I did," Jasmine replied, shifting nervously. "Why?"

"I'd like to see it. Is it in your cell?"

"No, it's… ah…" Jasmine flushed slightly then lightly tapped the top of the table. An instant later the chrome and silver squirrel leaped to the table top.

A wide smile crossed Syndrome's lip as the machine looked at him, its nose twitching, before mimicking that it was grooming itself. The machine officially had sparked his interest. Made up of small chrome coloured plates and tiny silver screws, the squirrel stared at the world through green glass eyes. Slightly smaller then the squirrels he'd seen growing up, the machine's tail was slightly longer and its ears slightly larger allowing him to assume that the machine did more then prance around and look pretty. It obviously had some programming that allowed it to follow verbal instructions (hence knowing that it was to jump onto the table when Jasmine tapped it) and it also had to have had some sense of secrecy since he hadn't even noticed it follow the girl in.

"When did you make it?" he asked, resisting the urge to pull out a screwdriver and disassemble the machine right then and there. He wanted to know how the machine ticked. Had the girl used an internal skeleton or was the machine jointed to allow such movement?

Jasmine frowned, a thoughtful look crossing her face. "Four years ago? I came to New York a few months before you attacked Metroville and I made Squirrel about a year after that."

If she had made the squirrel four years ago, what could she make now?

"Besides this, what other inventions do you have?"

"Well… Uh… None I guess. Every time I made something," Jasmine's face fell, "Eddie always smashed it."

Mentally cursing the stupid super, Syndrome nodded sympathetically. "Jasmine, I can call you Jasmine, right?"

"Uh…"

"Great. Now Jasmine, I'd like to offer you a job," Syndrome said. The disarming smile was back and he tried to force a kind look on his face while he internally squirmed. Time to maneuver the girl until she agreed to everything he wanted.

Jasmine looked startled and the squirrel hopped off the table to stand on her shoulder. "A job?"

Knowing honesty was always more believable then lies, he decided to start out with the truth. "I like you Jasmine. You seem like a nice girl who's been trapped in a situation gone out of your control. I'd like to help you and you being my employee is the easiest way for that to happen."

Shaking her head, Jasmine sank back into her seat. "Oh no, I couldn't-"

"I'd like to make you my personal assistant," Syndrome continued as if Jasmine wasn't protesting at all. "That would make you second in command answering only to me. It's a cushy job that would basically only require you to go to investor meetings and do a little inventing."

The squirrel pawed at Jasmine's ear and the girl froze, her eyes slowly coming up to meet his. "Inventing?"

This was really almost too easy. "Of course! Considering that you made that squirrel of yours it would be a crime to deny you the chance to create more. You will of course be assigned projects that must be designed and created, but most of the time will be yours to spend as you wish."

"What sort of projects?"

"Everything really," Syndrome answered, knowing that the next part of this question and answer session would have to be handled delicately. "My company is making quite a name for itself in electronics so you may find yourself designing a computer chip for gaming consoles one day…" He took a deep breath, his eyes fixing on her. "… and a laser weapon for use against supers the next."

Jasmine looked startled, her mouth frozen open mid protest so Syndrome continued quickly, reaching into his briefcase and pulling out a stack of papers. "Jasmine, think about it before getting all high and mighty. When has a super ever done anything for you?"

"Eddie's a super and he loves me!"

Syndrome almost did a dance of victory at Jasmine's words. The girl really was making this far too easy. Tossing across three photos he smiled as Jasmine winced and turned away. "Loved you so much he had to hit you?" he asked, trying to keep his voice grave.

Staring down at the pictures of her own bruised and battered face from the night of the attack a tear coursed its way down Jasmine's cheek. "He just can't control himself sometimes. He really does love me though."

"Jasmine, he's the one that's pressing charges against you. He's the one that got you locked up in this dump!"

"That's just because he's angry with me. Once he cools down a little everything will be perfect again."

He slid more photos to her. Photos of Eddie with a girl or two fawning over him as he beamed and laughed. In one picture a beautiful blond model was feeding him grapes while two more models rubbed his back and feet. In another picture the man was kissing a different beautiful woman as she wrapped her arms around his neck and he groped at the hem of her skirt. Schooling his face so that it was perfectly blank, Syndrome couldn't help but celebrate his victory as Jasmine's face fell. "It seems that your love is unreturned," he said quietly.

The beauty of the photos were that Syndrome barely had to edit the photos in order to make the super look bad. Here he had trimmed up a dress hem, there he had lowered a neckline or made a dress more transparent, but essentially the photos appeared exactly the same as they had everywhere else. Finding fame in his new super power and from the court case, Eddie hadn't been shy to use the opportunity to boost himself into a star studded circle. Getting rid of the ratty apartment he had leased a penthouse uptown and began appearing at fancy restaurants and parties with the most famous and lovely models on his arms. Eddie's sudden luck and spending spree had been partially funded by donations from rich super worshipers who had pitied the down in the dumps super. However, the last couple nights of debauchery (the ones that had yielded the best pictures currently breaking Jasmine's heart) had been funded by a generous salary bestowed by the Diligence Foundation.

The Diligence Foundation had been a recent creation of Syndrome's based on the proverb that 'Diligence is the mother of good fortune.' Through diligent working and setting Eddie up, Syndrome was about to receive the good fortune of a new side kick and a new pawn in his quest against the supers. Life was good.

"Where did you get these?" Jasmine asked quietly. Her eyes were empty and full of grief as the squirrel rubbed its metal body against her still bruised neck in what had to be a comforting manner.

"Newspapers and online," Syndrome said honestly, knowing that the girl would never go looking for them to see the changes he had made. "He's forgotten all about you Jasmine. With his new fame and fortune he's running after every pretty girl who can stand him. He set you up."

A flash of anger crossed Jasmine's face (just as Syndrome expected) and the girl tossed the photos back at the red headed super. "You're lying!" she shouted, slamming her hands down on the table and jumping to her feet.

Collecting the photos, Syndrome quickly tucked them away in the event a guard showed up because of the girl's outburst. He smirked. "Why would I lie?"

"I don't know!" Jasmine hissed, pacing the room. The squirrel leaped from her shoulder and loped around after her. "I don't know why you're lying to me, but you're lying! You… You just want me to get angry! To betray Eddie!"

"I'm not asking you to betray him," Syndrome said, the smile still firmly in place. "I'm asking you to join with me and to kill him along with all the other supers of the world. The supers are the one that betrayed you, not the other way around."

"Are you crazy?" Jasmine gasped out, looking over at him, horrified. "You can't kill the supers?"

"And why not?" Syndrome challenged, getting to his feet. Slowly he approached her, a confident swagger to his steps as he backed her into a corner. "Why can't I kill all the world's supers?"

"We need them!" Jasmine protested, her back hitting the wall. Her mind racing with the stories her grandparents had told her whenever her parents weren't around, Jasmine stared defiantly up at the red headed man. Syndrome… Syndrome was a villain! He was evil! She didn't know why, but he was messing with her mind for some reason, tricking and confusing her so that she would side with him. She had to be strong and stand against him! "We need supers because they're the only thing that can protect us against the forces of evil! Against monsters like you!"

A look of anger crossing his face, Syndrome pinned Jasmine against the wall covering her mouth with one large hand. There he stood for a long moment, simply holding her there as she squirmed and screamed unable to escape his strong grasp. Taking a deep breath and resisting the urge to hit the struggling girl he dragged her back to her chair and forced her into it. Grabbing his briefcase he pulled out the pictures of just after she'd been beaten and forced them into her hands.

"Look!" he snapped, hovering above her. "Just look! A super did that to you! A super gave you those bruises and that split lip and a super almost strangled you to death!" He grabbed her shoulders, shaking her when she was about to protest. "How the hell is sending you to jail for the rest of your life protecting the innocent?"

Jasmine began to cry, shaking her head desperately.

"Just think of how many supers there are in this world," Syndrome continued, kneeling down so he was eye level with her. "Just think of how many there are in New York City. There's like a dozen of them all together in that one city! Of that dozen, did even one of them try to help you? No! Instead, a super tries to kill you then gets you arrested for trying to defend yourself."

He waited a long moment, watching Jasmine cry and limply holding the photos. Slowly, gently, he wrapped his arms around her, resting her head underneath her chin just like Mirage used to do whenever he had a fantastically bad day. "The NSA itself has their lawyers trying to keep you locked up," he said gently, his voice becoming soothing. "They want to keep you locked up forever, but I can stop them from doing that to you. I can make it all go away and make you happy again."

Pulling away, her eyes red, Jasmine looked into Syndrome's clear blue eyes. It would be so easy to convince herself that his offer was earnest. The look on his face was so sorry, his eyes so full of pity. Jasmine had grown up on stories of super villains though; her grandparents seemed to have a never-ending stream of stories about the bad guys of their time and the cruel tricks and crimes they had committed.

_Think of the possibilities!_ a voice whispered in her head. Jasmine recognized it as the voice that had pressed her to stab Eddie that night and wondered if she was going insane. _A lab all your own, one that's properly stocked! The inventions we could make!_

Jasmine shook her head, pulling back more from the villain's arms. "No. No I-I can't… My parents… My grandparents…!"

All the pity fell from Syndrome's face as he nodded, coldly. Briefly, he thought about pressing further, but decided against it. Any more and he'd probably end up breaking the girl, convincing her to come only because she would think she was forced. Willing slaves worked harder then unwilling ones. "If that's your final decision," he said softly, getting to his feet. Gathering the photos, he tucked them away and snapped his briefcase shut. Gazing over at the still crying girl he paused, a new idea coming to his head. Sure, if _he_ was the one to push her now he'd loose her full cooperation, but if _circumstance_ was to begin to affect her…

A handkerchief entered Jasmine's line of vision followed by a business card. Taking both objects, Jasmine wiped the tears from her face before looking up at Syndrome in silent surrender. Now what?

"If you change your mind, feel free to call," Syndrome said softly, pointing to the card. He smiled at her warmly. "I think you're going to do okay, kid. Don't worry about the trial so much. Even if I'm not backing you I have the feeling you'll get off just fine."

Jasmine nodded slowly, wiping the last few tears from her eyes and offering the handkerchief back. "Thanks…"

"Please, keep it." Kill her with kindness, confuse her so she didn't know who was good, that was Syndrome's new strategy.

Sniffling, Jasmine tucked the business card away before studying the handkerchief. "What's 'N. I.' stand for?" she asked as Syndrome knocked on the door to be let out.

The door opened and Syndrome glanced back before stepping through. "Nomanisan Island," he said smirking. "My own paradise on earth." The door shut behind him with a loud clank and suddenly the room seemed much more empty then it had before.

Tucking the handkerchief carefully away, Jasmine turned to stare at the door. Soon it would reopen and the guard would appear with the shackles that pinched and bit into her skin to take her back to her cell. Maybe she'd get the chance to read, maybe her book would be taken away for some mysterious reason again, but the squirrel would find some way inside again so she wouldn't be that lonely.

Closing her eyes Jasmine thought about the super villain that had just left. Syndrome. The super villain Syndrome had visited her to offer her a job and a way out of here! She didn't know if she should laugh or cry. He had to have gotten her mixed up with someone, it had to have been a mistake!

The door opened again. "Jas?" a gentle voice questioned.

Jasmine's head shot up and the girl smiled widely. "Laura!"

"Oh Jas!" Laura gasped, suddenly rushing forward and throwing her arms around her little sister. Together the two girls cried, Jasmine burying her face into Laura's shiny golden curls while Laura clenched at Jasmine's straight brown hair. "Oh Jas, I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner," Laura cried, holding her sister even tighter. "It's terrible, so terrible how all this has happened to you! I wish I could have gotten here before but I-"

"It doesn't matter," Jasmine cried. She pulled away, but still held onto her sister tightly. "You're here now, Laura! You're here even though the most horrible things have just been happening!"

Laura paled. "What sort of things?" she asked, a tremor coming into her voice. "Did that man, your lawyer just bring you bad news?"

Jasmine blinked, confused. "That man?"

"The tall red head who just left. He was your lawyer, right?"

How to tell her sister that the man she had just seen was a super villain? "No… He was a reporter," Jasmine lied. "He wanted to interview me."

Her sister's lovely pale face clouded in anger. "What a jerk!" Laura growled, grabbing a chair and pulling it in so she could sit closely to her sister. "He looked so nice and friendly too! You really can't trust people these days, now can you?"

"No… I guess not…"

"Like that Eddie! When you first met him I thought he was a godsend since you were so happy with him. Jas, why didn't you ever tell us that he was beating you?"

"I…I just couldn't," Jasmine stuttered, looking away. She wished her squirrel would reappear so she could hold it and be soothed, but the machine had seemingly vanished from sight. She knew it was mad at her for turning Syndrome down… "If I told you I would have had to leave… And we love each other, Laura."

Laura stared down at her sister, aghast. Even after… Even after all this Jasmine still thought that the man loved her? Closing her eyes in an attempt to control her fury, Laura wondered how she could possibly convince her sister otherwise. It didn't matter, she realized suddenly. Once this was all over, she'd take her sister home to live with her husband and her children. The only important thing was to get her sister away before that super Eddie could take her little sister away just like supers had taken poor Cynthia from her.

"But this is worse then when Cynthia died," Laura moaned, only realizing that she'd said that part out loud when Jasmine's hand suddenly clenched around hers. She smiled guiltily, squeezing back. "Mom and Dad aren't that upset," she lied, trying to lighten the mood. "They're just not here because they can't afford the plane over and-"

"I know why they're not here," Jasmine interrupted quietly. They weren't here because she had failed at every lesson they'd given her. They'd raised her to fight injustice and to hold her head up high… Not to be beaten nightly by some drunk. Her grandparents wouldn't be on their way to visit either since her crime had involved a super. Her grandparents loved supers, holding them up on pedestals as examples of a perfect world. That their granddaughter had 'killed' a super and had been in the right was impossible for them to comprehend.

"Laura," Jasmine said softly, looking up at her sister.

"Yes?"

"…You hate supers, right?"

Laura hesitated not knowing where this would be going. "I'm not fond of them…"

"Why?" Her grandparents thought supers were better then regular people. Her parents had never wanted to talk about supers, but still seemed to hold them above all others. Laura on the other hand hated them. Was there a reason why?

Laura shifted uncomfortably. She had always sworn to herself that Jasmine would never know what a freakish family she had been born into. Her little sister was never to know about the eldest sister who had died because of that same freakish nature… At the same time the girl deserved to know at least some of the truth, especially now when her own world was being torn apart by those accursed supers.

"Supers are the reason why our sister Cynthia died," Laura said, years of harsh bitterness welling up so the words nearly came out mangled. She ignored the miserable look on Jasmine's face as the girl clutched at the spot where she had tucked away the business card. "If it weren't for supers… Cynthia would still be alive…"

If it weren't for supers she wouldn't be in jail, Jasmine realized with a start.

Syndrome's voice seemed to ring in her ears, mockingly. _When has a super ever done anything for you?_

Now that she thought of it… No super had done anything…

-

-

Jasmine stared straight ahead as the police officer forced her sluggish body back into the police car. Guilty! They had found her guilty! It had been self defense… Hadn't they seen that?

Laura had been crying when the guards had dragged her from the courtroom. Laura had been crying because her little sister was going to be going to jail for the rest of her life or worse. Laura had been crying… Eddie had been kissing some blond bimbo, before smiling at the cameras and declaring it a victory for all super kind.

Supers…

The police drove her to a different jail then the one she had been at before. This jail was located in the middle of nowhere behind electrified fences and barbed wire. Shackling her like a wild beast they had brought her to maximum security, locking her up and leaving her alone. Not even the squirrel had been able to get past the guards last night. She had heard the men yelling at her invention, kicking at it, and keeping it away.

Breakfast was worse in this new jail. The other inmates sneered at her, keeping away as if she was dangerous. The guards shoved her around laughing about how the mighty 'super villain' had fallen. When she had yelled at them that she wasn't a super villain they locked her up into solitary confinement.

Her lawyer came that evening, a bumbling balding man who was constantly board. Fresh from the hearing that determined what her final sentence would be, he shuffled papers and wouldn't look at her eyes. Finally he told her that after the NSA insisted the judge had ruled that her sentence would be death. To not worry, it wasn't likely that she would actually get the electric chair, it was starting to be considered cruel and unusual punishment these days. He'd fight and get her a lethal injection instead.

"But what about an appeal?" Jasmine insisted, unwilling to even consider the fact that she was going to die.

The lawyer had looked at her with eyes full of annoyance rather then sympathy or pity. "I'm only a state paid lawyer," he'd said coldly. "I don't do appeals."

The next day, her lawyer bravely fighting it out for the way she was going to die, Jasmine pulled out the business card and eyed the creased piece of paper wearily. Syndrome had said he would be able to get her out, but was it worth selling her soul to the devil? She thought about it for a very long time, until common hour was almost over. Finally grabbing the phone she dialed the number, a determined look on her face.

What had supers done to her?

They had killed her sister.

They had ostracized her from her grandparents.

They had made the world hate and fear her.

They were trying to get her dead…

"Hello?" The voice on the other side of the line was smug and familiar and male. It almost sounded like a godsend.

Twisting the phone cord in her hands, knowing her had precious little time, Jasmine choked up. "Nomanisan Island," she finally gasped out. "Is it a pun? You-You know… on that proverb that 'No man is an island?'"

There was a moment's silence on the other side. "It's amazing how few people get that."

Jasmine floundered for words as the guards entered the room and began to shout for prisoners to prepare to return to their cells. "Mr… Mr. Syndrome… I…. You…."

"Are you willing to follow my orders no matter what?"

"Yes." Jasmine almost fainted in relief as Syndrome realized why she had called.

"Even if it means killing supers?"

There was no hesitation this time. "Yes."

His voice was smugger then ever before and the man chuckled lowly. "I'll have someone over there shortly to take care of you, Ms. Baxter," Syndrome said, leaning back into his chair. A look of victory was on his face. "Welcome to my organization."

Jasmine may have sputtered out some words of thanks, but the guards shouts drowned them out as one man ripped the phone from her hands and hung it up. Syndrome didn't care though, he laughed again as he went to his computer and started all the necessary preparations. He had her. He had his new assistant, his side kick in crime.

Knowing that it had been mostly the fear of dying that had driven her to him, Syndrome first went to his computers and wiped all the information of his involvement in the trial from his databases. It wouldn't do to have the girl realize that he'd bought the jury and judge. Better to let her think it was the vast unjustness of the world and the supers that had sentenced her to die instead of a hefty sum of money.

Destroying the back up disks as well, Syndrome expertly hacked into his own bank accounts looping his bribe money through so many banks and different funds that it would be impossible for anyone to ever discover who the money had gone to. Then, he called his lawyers, telling them that they had the go ahead to seize control of the case and bribed his way into an early appeal date.

He'd bribe the judge to overturn her sentence as well, but that would wait until a judge had been assigned her appeal. For now all Syndrome could do was stop and wait, thinking of when (in the not so distant future) he'd be able to set all his plans in motion and get back to his mission.

Stretching, Syndrome made one final phone call informing his secretary to have everything arranged for his new assistants arrival. Telling her that money and inconvenience meant nothing he arranged to have Mirage's old rooms completely stripped of everything and new furniture brought in. Something more fitting with the décor of the base and not Mirage's fashionable yet expensive tastes.

Hanging up on the secretary (but not before calling her Beth and not Sophie to her great annoyance) Syndrome leaned back in his chair, basking in the sunlight that was coming through his hotel window. A new side kick on the way, his company bigger and better then before, and a dozen new plans ready for undertaking… This was the life…


	4. The first step is the hardest

Everything had changed so quickly

The day after Jasmine had called Syndrome, three proud looking lawyers had come to visit. With a look of smugness on their faces they told the girl exactly what was going to happen in the upcoming appeal. They had only stayed a short time, but upon leaving the conference room Jasmine had immediately noticed a difference in her surroundings.

The guards no longer mocked her or pushed her around and the manacles that were usually clasped around her wrists were forgotten. She was brought books, a reading lamp, extra blankets, and a guard appeared every few hours to ask if she needed anything. They let her squirrel in and brought her mugs of real tea (not the lukewarm flavored water the cafeteria served) and everything was "Yes Miss," and "No Miss," and "Can I do anything for you Miss?"

Sipping Earl Grey tea while reading T.H. White's The Once and Future King, Jasmine realized that this must be what real power was like. Power could turn anything to your advantage, making the terribleness of jail a halfway decent experience. Finishing her tea and having the guard fetch her another cup, a smile crossed Jasmine's face.

Maybe working for a super villain wouldn't be so bad after all.

Despite the fact that Syndrome was fixing the system in her favor, Jasmine still spent a month in jail while her case was being appealed. Laura visited daily, undeterred by the fact that Laura's home was in California and that it had to be costing Laura and her family more then they could afford to keep her there in a hotel. The pretty blond woman cried whenever she saw her little sister dressed in the orange jumpsuit. Jasmine wished she could tell her sister that everything was going to be fine, but realized she couldn't. How could she tell Laura that the reason she was going to be set free was because she had pledged her loyalties to a bad guy?

Instead, Jasmine told her sister jokes about the goings on in the jail, exaggerating stories until they seemed like comedy routines and making up other tales when nothing interesting happened. The siblings talked a lot about the appeal, Laura doubtful that it was going to work while Jasmine tried to tone down her words of certainty.

The first day her appeal was presented to the judges, Jasmine received a phone call from her parents. Full of long pauses and awkward silence, her parents had finally hung up after telling her that they loved her no matter what. Jasmine couldn't help but wonder if they were lying to her, or just to themselves. After all, they hadn't raised a finger to help her in her defense, letting a state lawyer handle her case instead of hiring someone better.

And she never did hear a word from her Grandparents.

Holding hands the day the three judge panel left to deliberate, Laura turned to her sister, a hopeful look in her eyes. "Jas, if everything works out… Would you want to come and live with my family and I for awhile?"

Jasmine smiled softly at her sister, remembering Christmas cards of the little suburban home with Laura, her husband, their three children, and their family dog standing in front. Things would be different if she went with Laura. Briefly, Jasmine fantasized about doing it, turning her back on Syndrome and moving to the west coast. In California, Jasmine would play with her beloved nephew and nieces every day. She would be able to get a job and start a new life. "I can't," she finally sighed, squeezing Laura's hand tighter. "I already have somewhere I need to go once this is all over."

Laura frowned, looking concerned. "It… It doesn't have anything to do with Eddie, does it?"

"It has nothing to do with Eddie," Jasmine assured her. It wasn't exactly a lie. Her job with Syndrome didn't have anything to do with that man exactly, just with supers in general.

Looking deeply into her little sister's green eyes, Laura hesitated. Jasmine had the same look in her eyes as Cynthia did whenever the super was about to go out to patrol. The look that said 'I'm going to do something you won't like and I'm sorry.' Wrapping her arms around Jasmine's shoulders, Laura hugged the girl tightly. "I love you so much, you know that?"

Resting her head on her sister's shoulder, Jasmine hugged her back. "I know."

It took two hours for the judges to return, their gravels banging as the court room erupted in sound at the words 'not guilty.' Hugging her sister tightly Jas grinned at her, not noticing the the relieved looking couple that was quickly exiting the room before they were spotted.

"I don't know what I would have done if those men had they not overturned Jassy's sentence," Mr. Baxter said to his wife as they hurried towards the car.

"I know what I would have done," the smaller woman as his side said gruffly. "Leveled the place with a few screams, grabbed Jassy, and gone villain. Our baby is too sweet for jail."

Harold Baxter smiled lovingly at his wife as he opened the car door for her. "Denise, how long do you think we'll have to pretend to disapprove of our daughter before the NSA forgets about this whole incident and moves on to something more important?"

"Hopefully soon," Denise sighed, her voice full of longing. Buckling in, they sped off on the long car ride back to Illinois. "After all, I want all of my babies and grandbabies filling our house by Christmas."

* * *

Arriving just as Jasmine was about to get into the dark car that was going to forever take her away from the jail, Laura had practically tackled Jasmine, knocking them both to the ground as she cried into her sister's shirt. Jasmine had held Laura tightly, wiping her tears away until her sister stopped crying. She helped the older woman to her feet and hugged her tightly. "Oh Laura," she sighed happily, "everything's going to be alright."

As Jasmine opened the car door, Laura had caught a glimpse of the red headed man that had passed her the first day she had visited Jasmine in jail. The one Jasmine had said was a reporter. She grabbed her sister's wrist and bit her lip, wondering what all this meant. The only answers she could think of weren't comforting.

"Be safe," she found herself whispering as she let go.

Kissing her sister on the forehead as if she was a child, Jasmine smiled and nodded. "I will."

And then she was gone, the dark car whisking her away as soon as the door had closed. Laura stood a long time in front of the jail, long after the car was out of sight, and cried. Then, she went back to her hotel room, packed her things, and flew home to her husband and family.

"Who was that?" Syndrome asked as the car drove, looking back to see the pretty blond woman staring after the car.

Gently scratching the mechanized squirrel's ears, Jasmine smiled brightly at her new boss. "My older sister Laura."

Syndrome frowned. He hadn't known that Jasmine had an older sister, especially one that had been concerned with out outcome of the girl's case. He had assumed since her parents and grandparents hadn't done anything to help his new side kick, that none of her family had really cared. "Does she know?" he asked, thinking about the complications a loving sibling might bring.

"Of course not."

"Good."

Smirking Syndrome shook Jasmine's hand. "Welcome to Nomaisan Island Technology."

"Glad to be here, boss."

Silence fell over the two and they sat there staring out of opposite windows, watching the scenery go by. He should probably talk to her, Syndrome thought to himself. There was still job responsibilities to assign, rules to go over, and plans to be made. Heck, the girl still didn't even know where she was going! All she had been told was that it was far away and that she was never to speak to anyone of the base's location. Of course that had been before, when Jasmine had still been in police custody. Now she was his.

Syndrome was about to turn to Jasmine and tell her of the island when the girl suddenly looked at him to speak. "Thank you," she said softly, an earnest look in her green eyes.

"For what?" Syndrome asked, slightly surprised.

"For everything. You saved my life. I swear I'll never forget that for as long as I live."

Hesitation filled Syndrome and for a very brief moment he felt guilty. After all, the death sentence he had 'saved' the girl from had originally been his doing. Without his interference she would probably have been acquitted. Probably. The light in the car vanished and Syndrome glanced out to see that they had just driven into an airplane hanger just as he had ordered. Opening the door, he helped Jasmine out, smiling slyly. "Don't thank me yet," he said with false modesty.

As they approached the sleek looking jet the stairs came down, Jasmine's mechanized squirrel dashing up them the moment they touched the ground. Nodding to his pilot and stewardess Syndrome went partially up the stairs before turning back to glance behind him. Jasmine hadn't followed. Standing there at the bottom of the stairs, on hand on the guardrail but both feet on the ground, she stared blankly at the plane as if she didn't see it there. "You coming?" Syndrome asked lightly, taking a step back and offering her his hand.

Jasmine's eyes focused on his hand and she took a long, almost painful, deep breath. "Yes," she said, grabbing Syndrome's hand tightly and following him up the stairs.

Syndrome smiled, urging her forward into the cabin while he hung back to briefly speak with his pilot. That done, he entered the cabin and stopped, gazing at his new side kick. It was a different person that met him there. Despite the loose fitting and plain prison issued t-shirt and jeans, Jasmine looked at home in the plush jet interior. Her squirrel had curled up next to her on the couch-like seat, still seeming alert as it rested. Absently flipping through some business magazine between sips of tea, the girl looked like a resting executive rather then a recently released prisoner.

Sliding into the seat across from her, Syndrome leaned back, grinning as he crossed his legs. A moment later the stewardess appeared, requesting that they buckle in for take off, and less then five minutes after that they were in the air.

Draining the rest of her tea, Jasmine scooted over to gaze out the window as the world got smaller and smaller beneath them. She'd always loved flying. She loved watching the way borderlines and cities faded away until they were only patches of different coloured land. "Where are we going?" she asked, looking up at her boss.

Syndrome smirked, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back further. "To paradise."

* * *

NSA Special Agent William Mallory was furious. "You let her get away!? How!?" he shouted into the phone.

The super on the other end of the phone didn't sound as sorry as Mallory would have liked. "The car drove her into a hanger and the plane was towed right out of it and took off. I can't follow a plane, Mallory. You'd need a flying super for that."

Mallory groaned in frustration and rubbed the bridge of his nose, resisting the urge to curse. "Please tell me you got a tracker on the jet."

"Wasn't issued one."

Mallory did curse then, grumbling about those idiots in Tech who couldn't get a damn thing right. Five years. It had been five years since the NSA had returned in full force and those damn Techs still couldn't do a decent job of things! Briefly, he mourned the glory days gone past. Now there had been some inventing. However, when the Super Recollection Act had been passed and the NSA formally disbanded, all the Techs had left to find other jobs. Jobs that most of them hadn't wanted to leave. Turned out that private sector paid more then government. Who would have thought?

"I'll have their heads on platters," Mallory swore before returning to the issue at hand. "The girl, Jasmine Baxter, did you at least see who she went with?"

The super hero named Quill sighed. "I already told ya, Mallory, I never saw him or her. The gal left the jail, got attacked by her sister, then got into the car with the dark tinted windows. Never even got a good look at the driver. If you wanted to see who she went with you should have sent a super with X-ray vision or something. I only can shoot spikes out of my skin, Mallory. Green spikes."

Resisting the urge to snap at Quill and tell him that he had _tried_ to get a better super, but hadn't been able to on such short notice. Instead he thanked Quill then hung up, slamming his headset back onto the phone cradle.

Something had gone terribly wrong with this entire case. Prisoner number 44458- Mallory stopped. He had promised himself he would stop thinking of people as numbers and start treating them like people again- Jasmine Baxter had been intended to serve as an example to the villain world. Young and pretty, with no previous criminal history, the NSA had used her to show what they would do to anyone who dared kill a super. The idea being that if they cracked down this hard on such a sweet looking girl, just think of what they would do to a super villain or a hardened criminal.

After winning the case, the NSA had loudly demanded the death sentence, thinking that there was no way that they would get it. The girl was too nice to die while everyone agreed that her boyfriend was a jerk. Actually, Eddie (or should he say Restoration since that was the only name the man answered to now) had been placed under Mallory's jurisdiction and the agent had quickly learned to hate the man with a passion. Not being able to die was all very well and good if you were that person, but the power was essentially useless to the NSA. That didn't stop Restoration from designing quite possibly the most gaudy super suit ever and claiming half of New York city as under his direct care. Oh no, the man seemed to live to make headlines with his stupidity and cause Mallory hours of overtime work… But that was a different problem.

Thinking that their proclamation that only the death sentence would do would only be considered a scare tactic, even the NSA had been shocked when the judge ruled that the girl was to receive death. Several agents, Mallory included, had lost several nights of sleep upon that decision. Anxiously, they had worked to see if they could somehow subtlety get the verdict changed, sentencing the girl to prison time until death. It had almost been a relief when the girl had gotten new competent lawyers instead of the state loser that had been appointed.

However, the lawyers had been strange. Sweeping in with a vengeance that left everyone in a state of awe, they too quickly brought the case to appeal. Thinking that this was their chance to get the sentence lessened, the NSA fought hard to keep the non-guilty verdict but tried to soften their words so perhaps the panel of judges would rule the verdict correct, but the sentence unfair. Instead, the lawyers wiped the floor with the NSA, saying all the right things at the worst times and otherwise making them look like fools.

Soundly defeated and annoyed, the NSA had grudgingly believed that the lawyers had succeeded. There was no way the verdict would be overturned, but the girl would spend five to ten years in jail instead of the twenty to life the NSA really wanted her to serve. But the judges came back saying that the verdict had been overturned and the girl was now free to go. The NSA went into a state of shock.

Instantly, damage control went into play. Trying to figure out everything that could have possibly gone wrong, the NSA realized several things that weren't right. The lawyers bank accounts revealed that they were obviously being paid for doing this case, but the one paying the bills couldn't be found. Spying on the girl in the jail cell had revealed that she had been living a life of practical luxury compared to the rest of the prisoners. The three judges that had reviewed the appeal and came up with the not-guilty verdict had each received a hefty 'campaign donation' a few weeks before. The entire deal screamed of bribery and foul play, but no sting puller could be found.

Careful study had proved that Jasmine didn't have the finances or the connections to pull this off on her own. Calls to her parents (friends of Mallory's from before the Act passed) revealed that they had nothing to do with her new found luck either.

Someone else was involved.

It was driving the NSA crazy as they tried to figure out who.

The final insult had to be the jet whisking Jasmine away though. If she had remained in New York there was a chance this mystery person could be found, but the involvement of the jet dashed this hope. Mallory was a practical person, he knew that if this person had the cash to buy judges and keep a private jet they wouldn't be caught by something as simple as the registration. Sure enough, upon checking, the private airfield used had no record of any planes taking off at that time. They had no registration from anyone owning a jet of that description, no name, no flight plan, nothing.

Passports wouldn't hinder a person like that either, Mallory knew. The plane with the girl and the mystery person could be anywhere in the world by now.

Closing the file Mallory sighed, knowing that nothing more could be done. Until the girl was spotted or reappeared her rich friend would not be found.

It was like chasing an invisible man.

Mallory hated those types.


End file.
